Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, recently announced that he is developing his own alternative to ChatGPT, the widely-used open-source chatbot developed by OpenAI. He argued that the existing AI system is being trained “to be politically correct”. Musk was an early investor in OpenAI and has voiced his concerns about the dangers of AI in the past. Last month, he was a key signatory of a letter which called for a halt to the development of “giant AI experiments”.
Essentially, TruthGPT, the AI system that Musk is developing, will have a primary objective of understanding the nature of what is true and not just what is politically correct. Moreover, he believes that an AI that seeks to understand mankind’s ways has less of a chance of causing harm.
Moreover, Musk has incorporated a new for-profit company called X.AI Corp to work on this project. This project will be in contrast to his former company, OpenAI, which is now working on ChatGPT more as a business than a non-profit research lab.
The development of a truth-seeking AI has been not only been a pet project of Musk’s, but it is also necessary in light of recent developments. For instance, US safety regulators have recently announced an investigation into a fatal crash involving a Tesla car suspected of using an automated driving system which crashed into a parked fire truck.
As Musk himself has admitted, he is trying to focus on engineering problems at Tesla and manage their AI systems. But at the same time, he wants to keep his eye on the potential dangers of AI, and he hopes TruthGPT will be one potential solution to this problem. We’ll just have to wait and see what he develops in the coming years.
X.AI Corp is the new for-profit business founded by Elon Musk. It was formed on March 9 of this year, 2021, with Musk listed as the director and his long-time adviser Jared Birchall listed as secretary. With its incorporation, Musk has shown his unwavering dedication to his holistic view on AI, that it can both lead to great progress and great danger.
In the past, Elon Musk has shared his strong views on AI, claiming that many tech leaders have a “limited” understanding of it. He was an early investor in OpenAI and co-chaired its board upon its 2015 founding around the same time he was founding SpaceX and Tesla. Musk left the board in 2018 due to potential conflicts arising from Tesla’s work on automated driving systems.
For now, all we can do is continue to watch and wait for what Elon Musk decides to do with TruthGPT and how it will impact the AI industry in the coming years.
